Chapter 6: Querying WMI

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Overview

After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

• Understand the different methods for querying WMI

• Use the Select-Object cmdlet to create a WMI query

• Configure the filter argument to limit information returned by WMI

• Configure the WMI query to return selected properties

• Use the Where-Object cmdlet to improve performance of WMI

• Leverage both hardware classes and system classes to configure machines

After network administrators and consultants get their hands on a couple of Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) scripts, they begin to arrange all kinds of scenarios for use. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that WMI is powerful technology that can be leveraged in a quick manner to solve a lot of real problems. The bad thing is that a poorly written WMI script can adversely affect the performance of everything it touches- from client machines logging onto the network for the first time to huge infrastructure servers that provide the basis for mission-critical messaging applications. In this chapter, we examine the fundamentals of querying WMI in an effective manner. Along the way, we examine some of the more useful WMI classes and add to our Windows PowerShell skills. All the scripts mentioned in this chapter can be found in the corresponding scripts folder on the CD.